By Uche Amunike
The National Population Commission (NPC) has said that every Nigerian would be counted in the upcoming 2023 housing and population census counting, including the mentally challenged and homeless in the country.
Speaking, during a one-day capacity building workshop for the 2023 population and housing census publicity committee, the NPC federal commissioner representing Ondo state, Prince Diran Iyantan made this disclosure, while assuring Nigerians that the 2023 census is expected to have at least 98% success. He said that the reason why the workshop was held, was to avoid undermining the professionalism of the publicity committee members and enhance their capacity to deliver on their mandates.
He explained that the committee remained one of the most important committees to carry out the exercise due to the psyche of the public, as most people usually showed reluctance in subscribing to government programs.
His words: ‘Because of the importance of this exercise, our governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, thought it wise to assemble the committee with seasoned professionals to have a seamless exercise in the state.’
The state director of NPC, Mr. Oluyemi Falusi also spoke on the digital innovations in the 2023 census. He stated that digitizing the census was in tandem with recommendations of the United Nations.
According to him, the 2023 exercise would be the first digital census ever to be held in Nigeria, adding that it would give rise to faster processes, track progress, ensure efficiency, reduce error, and also ensure quick publication of results, etc.
He further stated that the training, conduct, analysis, deployment, recruiting and other processes of the counting exercise were also digitalized, adding that the five-tier strategy that was being deployed for quality assurance, evaluation system and thorough monitoring had been set up.
He also assured that there will be a call centre and a situation room in the state where the daily progress of the exercise would be assessed, stressing that data analysis would also be done promptly in order to ensure prompt publishing of results, with the aid of the available digital technology tools provided by the NPC.
The Head of Census Department in the state, Dr Olufunbi Olowookere, on her part, has also described the conduct of the population census in the country as irregular. She did say that the present population figures in the country had so far been based on estimation and postulations, which was why it was necessary to hold the 2023 population and housing census.
She explained that the census was expedient in order to carry out economic and socio-political planning and implementation of government policies, adding that since the country’s land mass had been demarcated for the exercise, the data gotten from the exercise could be employed by experts in the agricultural, health, education and other sectors as well.
The Issue of generating media content for the exercise was also addressed by the Head of Public affairs department in the state, Mrs. Santos Odunayo who posited that journalists in the state have been trained in the area of improving professional media content so as to reliably inform, enlighten, educate, while enhancing acceptability and refuting negative perceptions and the wrong criticisms of the exercise.
She described the media as a very important part of the exercise as they would need to disseminate appropriate information to the public, adding that the NPC relied on them to gain public support and make sure that there is total success of the process.
The workshop was also attended by the chairman, on the State House of assembly committee on information, Mr Olugbenga Omole; , the Ondo State NUJ Chairman, Mr Leke Adegbite and the State Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Father Anselm Ologunwa.
